PROMISE MOTIVATION: FILMS WITH GOOD NEWS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Abstract

This article takes a close look at five films that encourage their viewers to get actively involved in solving the climate crisis. Written from the perspective of a scholar–activist, the analysis is centered on the French documentary film Demain (Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent, 2015) and then goes on to contrast it with the German documentary Climate Warriors (Carl A. Fechner, 2017) and also, more briefly, with the Australian documentary 2040 (Damon Gameau, 2020), the American documentary Bidder 70 (Beth Gage and George Gage, 2012), and the American feature film How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Daniel Goldhaber, 2023). While most known climate change films focus on “risk motivation,” portraying the gloom and doom of climate disruption, the films discussed in this article, Demain above all, prioritize “promise motivation,” a form of visualizing and storytelling that focuses on what can be done to encourage viewers to become engaged. The analysis reveals that “promise motivation” can take many different forms, from visualizing the effects of education, innovative economic activities, community gardening, organizing protests, and the like, all the way to portraying successful civil disobedience, and that its effectiveness is grounded not primarily in individual heroism as in traditional cinema, but instead in powerful storytelling about seeking and finding solidarity.